


But I am More Faithful Than I Intended to Be

by veleda_k



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, F/M, Possibly Triggering Material, Pre-Canon, Prison, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veleda_k/pseuds/veleda_k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once a week, every week, for three and a half years, Kate visited Neal in prison. Somehow they survived. Spoilers for "Forging Bonds."</p><p> </p><p>(Content notes:  The aftermath of minor violence. The threat of major violence and rape, especially rape by coercion. No rape or major violence actually takes place. Feel free to contact me if you have further questions.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I am More Faithful Than I Intended to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Tennessee Williams. Thank you to florafic for betaing.

“I won't visit you in prison.”

Kate couldn't remember when she had said that. She couldn't remember the exact context. Neal had just finished pulling some foolish stunt, something reckless and unnecessary.

Kate wondered if he remembered those words. 

She wrote to Neal multiple times a week, and she had applied to be put on his approved visitors list. But she still wasn't certain she wasn't just tormenting him.

“Are you going to visit him?” Alex asked one night. It was one of their infrequent get-togethers. Kate wouldn't have exactly called Alex a friend (and she knew Alex felt the same about her), but there were only so many people to talk to in their line of work. And they got along well enough. 

“I don't know,” Kate admitted. “You're not.”

Alex laughed. “I'd do a lot for Neal, but I'm not going to prison for him. Not even on the right side of the bars. Besides,” she added, “it's not like he came to see me in the hospital after Copenhagen.” She shot a look at Kate.

“You can say the word,” Kate told her. 

Alex shrugged. “Anyway, you're right, I won't be making an appearance. Mozzie thinks you should visit.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Of course he does. If I do, he won't have to.” Mozzie would no doubt argue that they shouldn't give all of their faces to US law enforcement. What was worse was that Kate essentially agreed. She just wasn't sure if she wanted it to be her offering herself up.

“Neal is _your_ boyfriend >.”

“Is he? That's what I don't know. We broke up, and what went down in that warehouse, I don't know if that was us getting back together or not.” She and Alex didn't usually get this personal, but Kate had to talk to someone. Otherwise she'd lose it.

Before leaving, Alex looked seriously at Kate. “Hey, whatever you decide is none of my business. Just make sure it's your decision. Mozzie can buy four years' worth of wigs if he needs to.”

For a little while, Kate was able to stop thinking about it so much. She kept writing, but as long as she was waiting to know whether she'd be granted visitation privileges, she didn't have to make a decision. Then the call from Neal came, telling her she'd been approved.

“I'd forgotten it would be you who would tell me,” Kate said. “I guess I thought a committee would send me a form letter or something.” It had been easier to imagine it like that.

Neal chuckled. It sounded slightly strained. “No, it's, um, the responsibility of the inmate.” He laughed again, and it sounded even stranger this time. “It still feels weird to connect that word to me.” There was a pause. “You're quiet. This is good. This is what you wanted.” A hint of worry crept into his voice. 

“Neal...” Kate had to swallow several times. “I don't know if I'm coming to see you.”

“But you've been writing,” Neal reminded her. Kate could recognize how he sounded when he was trying to appear calm. “And you applied to be on my visitors list.”

“I know,” Kate said. “I wanted the option.”

“Oh,” Neal said softly. “Well, you have it. I love you.” He hung up before Kate could reply.

Kate set down the phone. She didn't need to feel guilty, she told herself. Neal had gotten himself into this. He had pursued her when she had made it clear she was avoiding him, and he had knowingly walked into an FBI trap to do it. It was his mess, and she had every right to let him stew in it.

Except it had been so good to hear his voice. Did she want to go four years without seeing him? Did she want to leave him there alone?

His hands had felt so warm that day in the warehouse. She had been confused, angry, relieved, frightened. But she had told him she loved him, and she had meant it.

Even late Friday night, indecision still ate at her. But before she went to sleep, she set her alarm for early in the morning. She told herself that she could still go about her Saturday like it was any other day, but come morning she couldn't be surprised to find herself driving up towards the prison.

Kate was expecting the security measures, but they still made her guts clench. She was a thief walking into prison, and none of that felt safe or right. She showed her driver's license like it was no big deal, when in fact she had checked it three times before she left home to make sure it was the official ID with her real name on it. 

As she went through the metal detector, Kate ran through escape plans, in case it went off, in case they tried to hold her. She knew how to stage a distraction. She knew how to evade capture and disappear into a crowd. Even here, she could manage. She kept telling herself that.

The metal detector didn't go off. It had no reason to.

Kate stashed her belongings in a locker. It reminded her first of going to the pool as a little girl, then of stashing briefcases full of cash in train stations.

Kate bought a bag of M&Ms from the snack machine and sat down in the waiting room. The walls were stark white, the chairs were uncomfortable, and a TV up in a corner was showing Jerry Springer. At least it wasn't Cops.

Kate folded herself in and tried to block out her surroundings, even if it went against everything she had trained herself to do. She wished she had brought a book.

“First time?” Kate started at the strange voice and a sudden pressure on her arm. A woman in her early forties smiled at Kate. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”

Kate shook her head. “No, it's fine. Yes, it's my first time.”

The woman nodded. “The first time's is the worst. I'm Loretta.” 

She held out her hand. Kate took it. “Kate.”

In a gentle voice, Loretta filled Kate in on the ins and outs of the prison; which lockers would eat your quarters and which wouldn't, the convenience store proprietor who could hold your cell phone for a fee, and a dozen other little details.

Finally, Kate heard Neal's name called. She didn't notice her hands were shaking until she looked down. She stilled them and walked into the visiting room. With outward calm, Kate sat down at the window across from Neal and picked up the phone. 

“You came,” Neal breathed, his voice full of joy and relief.

Kate nodded. “Yeah.” She fought to control the maelstrom of emotions churning inside her. She was still so angry. You lied to the marks, you did not lie to your team. At least, you shouldn't. She still burned at the memory. Maybe even more than the lying, she was angry that he had thought she would be stupid enough to fall for it.

Kate wasn't sure what would have happened in that warehouse if the FBI hadn't interrupted them. Would she have taken him back? Or would she have pulled away, dismissed the kiss as a moment of weakness and walked out? But the FBI had barged in, and Neal went to prison. Leaving Neal to gallivant around Europe was one thing. Leaving him to rot in prison was another. 

“How are you?” Kate asked. She knew it was a stupid question, but it was also a necessary one.

Neal gave her a pale imitation of his usual million dollar grin. “I'm okay.”

Kate frowned. “Neal, don't.” She knew he couldn't be honest, not with all the eyes on them, but she couldn't bear to hear that kind of lie.

Neal raised his hands. “I am okay. As okay as I can be. Prison's a system. You know I can work a system.”

Kate nodded. “I know.” It was far from enough to make her stop worrying. But Neal was a survivor. She didn't have any option but to trust him to survive this.

“But you have to tell me about you. How is everyone?”

Kate realized just how little either of them could say about their time apart. “Mulder still isn't speaking to me, but Artemis and the Gentleman have some opportunities lined up.” She slipped into their old code names easily. Mozzie had never been happy with being linked to an FBI agent, even a fictional one, but Neal and Kate had overruled him. It fit too well. Artemis was a hunter, and dapper, courteous Hale could never have been called anything else. 

Neal smiled. “Mulder will come around.”

“He blames me.” Kate didn't need to say for what.

“It's not your fault,” Neal assured her.

“I know,” Kate replied flatly. It was Neal's fault, partly. His fault for ignoring her wishes. His fault for walking into what he knew was a trap. But Neal hadn't arrested himself. He hadn't been the one who used her as bait. If there could be any benefit to all this, hopefully it would be Neal finally learning what Kate and Mozzie had been trying to drum into his head for ages: FBI agents were not toys. They were not friendly dogs who followed you home. They were the enemy.

To change the subject, Kate told a story about a party she attended a month ago, where a whole conga line had fallen into the pool. It had been more to Neal's taste than hers, but she left out the best part, in which she walked away with a collection of 18th century broaches. She trusted Neal to read between the lines.

The time rushed by. Kate stood when the guard announced her time was up, reluctant to leave Neal, but relieved at the thought of escaping the eyes of the ever present guards and cameras.

Neal's hand flew up to press against the glass, so quickly that Kate thought it may have been a reflex. She pressed her own hand to the window. “I'll be back next week,” she promised. The words were out of her mouth before she could think about them

Neal turned to look at her as he was led away, and Kate felt the memory of his eyes on her all the way home.

As Saturday approached again, Kate reminded herself that she didn't have to visit every week. Strictly speaking, she didn't have to visit at all. But she had promised, and the thought of Neal hopelessly waiting for her was too much to bear.

The security measures weren't any less stressful or degrading than last time, and Jerry Springer was once again playing on the waiting room TV. Loretta was there, and she smiled when she saw Kate.

Despite her promise to return, Kate could see equal parts surprise and relief on Neal's face when he saw her. It irked Kate, although she tried to push the feeling down. Between the two of them, she wasn't the one known for breaking promises.

Kate filled their time together. She talked about Mozzie's latest conspiracy theories and the strange bustle of life in New York. She even threw in some stories from when they had been separated, the kind that wouldn't get her arrested. Neal's eyes brightened with interest when she told those stories, but she saw regret there as well.

Neal let her talk, throwing in only the occasional comment. There were a thousand things Kate wanted to ask him, but she held back. She wasn't foolish enough or arrogant enough to think that talking to her could make Neal forget he was in prison, but she didn't want to throw reality in his face. So she stuck to safe topics, and they both pretended there wasn't anything else to talk about. It was easier that way.

At the end of their time, Kate pressed her hand against the glass as Neal did the same. “I'll be back next week.”

Kate did return next week, and the week after that. Every time she entered the visiting room, Neal wore the same look of surprise. On her fourth visit, Kate picked up the phone and said, “Every time I come, it seems you didn't expect to see me.” Neal's face fell, and she felt a hot rush of guilt. She hadn't meant to start her visit like that. “Can't you have a little faith in me?” she asked more gently

Neal let out a sad laugh. “Sometimes I think you're the only thing I have faith in anymore. But I can't help being afraid that you'll leave again.”

“Again,” Kate repeated carefully. 

“You left once before,” Neal said sadly.

Kate did not want to have this conversation here. She did not want to put her private life on display for the prison system to analyze. But if not here, then when? This couldn't wait four years. “No, Neal,” she said with calm, quiet anger. “You left.”

Neal looked at her, perplexed, and Kate remembered all her old resentment. “You tried to con me, we fought, you ran. You went to Copenhagen after I'd made my feelings on that perfectly clear, and then you expected I'd be there waiting for you whenever you decided to come back.”

“I'm sorry,” Neal said softly.

“I believe you,” Kate replied. “But, dammit, Neal, I disappeared. I made it clear that I didn't want to be found. And what did you do?”

Neal's face twisted uncomfortably. “I thought if I could just talk to you, I could fix things between us. I thought it worked. You said you loved me.”

Kate did her best not to feel like she was kicking a puppy. “I do. I never stopped.” Kate met Neal's eyes. “But that doesn't mean I can't live without you.” Kate kept her eyes on Neal without glancing at the guards or camera. They were putting on a fine show, weren't they?

“So what's this, then?” A little bitterness crept into Neal's voice. “Are you coming here out of pity?”

“I'm here because you need me.”

“I needed you before.”

“No, you wanted me. It's different.”

“So when I'm out of this place, when you don't think I need you anymore, what happens then?” Neal tried to pose the question with little emotion. Most people would have been fooled.

“I don't know,” Kate admitted.

“Well,” Neal said, “I guess we have four years to figure it out.” Then he changed the subject, too quickly to feel natural, but Kate didn't mind in the least. Mindful of the eyes around them, she talked about shopping for diamonds, knowing Neal would know what kind of shopping she was talking about.

Kate realized the true weight of her and Neal's situation in pieces. First was when Hale came to her with a job offer. “Gold,” he told her. “Spanish doubloons. Up to you whether you want to run a con or just get in and get out.”

“Where is it?” Kate asked, dreading the answer.

“France.” Hale sounded pleased with himself, and he had every reason to be. He knew Kate loved France.

Kate bit her lip. “I can't, Hale. I have a commitment.”

“Ah,” Hale said gently. He was briefly silent. “It's a good thing what you're doing,” he told her when he spoke again.

 _You could do it too_ , Kate thought. She didn't bother to say it out loud. She understand why Hale, Mozzie, Alex, and all their contacts were staying away. She even agreed that it made sense. Besides, crime wasn't career for the thin-skinned. But that didn't stop the resentment. Kate hadn't asked to be Neal's entire support system. And no one had checked with her to see if she wanted to put her life on hold while everyone else moved forward. It wouldn't do any good to take her anger out on Hale though. Her choices were her own, and besides, it wouldn't do to alienate the few friends she had. “Will you keep me in mind for future jobs?” she asked.

“Of course,” he assured her. “You're first on my list.” Kate thanked him, and they made small talk for a few minutes. Hale's oldest grandchild had made the honor roll. As the conversation wound down, Hale's voice turned serious. “We all know it's hard for you,” he said. “And we all appreciate what you're doing. Even Mozzie, even if he's not ready to admit it yet. If you need any help, you can call me.”

After the hung up, Kate grew thoughtful. No one was going to give her the help she really needed, which was someone to help shoulder her burden. Still, there might be a few advantages to be had. Being the faithful lover could work for her, even if she couldn't truly improve her situation.

It was a ruthless way of thinking, but Kate knew Neal would understand. He was a master of using his genuine feelings to advance himself. This was how people like them survived. And if there was one thing Kate had learned about herself, it was that she was a survivor. She knew that Neal was too, and that should have reassured her. Hadn't she told herself just that the first time she visited him? But that didn't stop the nagging fears. Prison wasn't a high end con, and it wasn't a heist. Kate did believe Neal could survive anything, including prison. She just wasn't sure what it would cost him.

Kate's fear intensified when her weekly visit brought her face to face with an already yellowing bruise marring the left side of Neal's face. Automatically, she reached out to touch it before remembering the barrier. 

Neal must have noticed her expression. He smiled, but there was something forced in it. “It's fine,” he assured Kate. “Not that bad.”

“Were you in a fight?” Kate asked, not certain she wanted to know the answer. It was difficult to imagine Neal throwing a punch, but if he had to, if he had no choice...

Neal gave a small laugh. Someone who didn't know him would have missed the strain. “I was in the proximity of a fight,” he explained. “I didn't get out of the way fast enough, and I got an elbow to the face. The guys who were actually fighting look a lot worse.” He paused. “That was meant to be reassuring.”

“Missed the mark a little,” Kate said, intentionally casual.

Throughout the visit Kate tried to not obviously stare at the bruise, but also not obviously avoid looking at it. The ironic thing was that Neal had not been wrong when he called the bruise not that bad. It was large and ugly, but in their line of work bruises, sprains, and even broken bones were occupational hazards. Both Neal and Kate had had worse than the bruise on Neal's face. 

But that had been on the outside, where there was a safe house or bolthole to run to. Neal was a brilliant escape artist, but now he had nowhere to run. And in the past, Neal had had people he could depend on. Kate herself, or Mozzie, or Alex. Hell, even Keller once upon a time. Who did he have now?

It wasn't that Kate thought Neal was completely isolated. He never gave her details, but he mentioned forging alliances and making himself useful. In his own words, Neal knew how to work a system. But working the system couldn't protect him from being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Growing up a middle class white girl, Kate had learned that the police were on her side, the people who would protect her. She wasn't laboring under that delusion any longer. She'd seen how the system protected its own. CEOs drove their companies into the ground, left hundreds of people without jobs, and flitted away with million dollar golden parachutes. Men like Adler, if they got caught at all, spent their sentences in minimum security facilities, while Neal was trapped in maximum security, staying alive by placating murderers and rapists. Escape risk, they had said, as if Neal couldn't escape from this place if he put his mind to it. More like he hadn't had a judge in his pocket.

Some of Kate's anger must have showed on her face. “It's okay,” Neal told her gently. “It'll be gone in a few days.”

Kate shook her head. “It's not fair.”

Neal let out a tired, genuine laugh. “Kate, if life were fair, what would become of people like us?”

Kate scraped by. Alex and Hale sent her jobs when they could. Kate tried to ignore the air of pity she suspected came with these jobs. Poor, long suffering Kate, who couldn't fend for herself. 

Kate tried to remind herself that they needed her as much as she needed them. Without Alex and Hale, Kate might be stuck waiting tables or temping as some idiot's underpaid secretary. Without Kate, Alex and Hale would have to imagine Neal isolated and alone in prison. They might have to confront their own cowardice. (Kate knew she wasn't being fair, but she didn't care.)

Kate didn't know how Mozzie handled his conscience. From what Neal said, Mozzie sent him books. Knowing Mozzie, he was also passing Neal items more forbidden in nature. 

Mozzie still hadn't gotten in touch with her. Kate wondered if he was even still angry with her, or if he was simply holding off out of stubbornness. If it was the latter, Kate didn't have room to criticize. It was stubbornness that prevented her from calling him as well.

Alex and Hale didn't just pass her jobs. Hale called her periodically to to see how she was doing, and she and Alex occasionally went out for drinks and shop talk. Kate didn't feel like a pariah, but she did feel an undefinable disconnection.

Kate's truest allies came from a place she wasn't expecting. In the dingy prison waiting room, there wasn't much to do other than talk to each other, so Kate got to know the other women. They formed a solidarity out of necessity There were a thousand little details to know, and no one in charge could be counted on to help. They weren't a tight knit group, but the regulars looked out for one another, and some bonds formed. Loretta in particular had decided to take Kate under her wing. 

Some of the women had no problems revealing all the details of their lives and struggles. Others, like Kate, were more circumspect, although Kate had her con artist tricks to make it appear she was revealing more than she actually was. Kate had at least told them what Neal was in for.

“Bond forgery?” one of the women repeated incredulously. “I figured everyone here was in for a real crime. My brother shot a cop.”

“Who says that's a real crime?” another woman hissed, too low for the guards to hear. Some of the women looked scandalized. Others smiled grimly.

Most of the women were outside their loved one's criminal activities, or had only been mildly involved. But some of them were in the life. Not that any of them would be obvious about it, of course. It was the little things. They way they eyed the prison staff, subtly different from the way the other visitors did--sharper. It was the way they talked about the crimes their loved ones had committed--a little more knowing, and a lot less concerned with the stupidity of committing a crime and much more concerned about the stupidity of getting caught. (Kate could certainly relate to that.)

Regardless of their many differences, there was one thing all the regular visitors understood: the prison staff were the enemy. The visitors who were law abiding members of society might not put it like that, but they knew. Some could be decent, like Bobby, who gave Kate updates when he saw her on how Neal was doing. Bobby called her Ms. Moreau as if he honestly respected her. Bobby was a small blessing. But most of the staff were not like Bobby. Some of them were merely apathetic. They had their own problems and had no time for the problems of others. Others were callous. They didn't care either, but they'd let you know how much they didn't care. But some, some were dangerous. They liked the power and control, and they weren't afraid to show it. Who was going to stop them, after all?

Jed Booth fell into the last category. Kate avoided him as much as she could, but that wasn't always possible. Booth leered and grinned too widely at her. On the rare occasion he could get close enough, he would brush up against her “accidentally,” and linger just a little too long. Taking any one incident on its own, Kate almost felt she was overreacting. Taking them all together made her nervous. No, it made her more than nervous, it made her afraid. Even worse, it made her feel helpless. Those emotions reminded Kate of her old self, the idiot girl who had let her thieving boss walk away with her life savings. But she endured it, because the only other option was running away, and she certainly wasn't going to do that. Kate had survived losing her job, her apartment, her savings, and her place in the world. She had survived her boyfriend attempting to con her and having to go it alone. She could survive this. At least, that was what Kate told herself until the day Booth finally managed to corner her alone, after she had finished her visit with Neal. Kate thought a strip search would have felt less invasive than the way his eyes raked over her body.

“I really admire you,” he said, stepping in far too close. “Coming every week the way you do. It's very devoted. Caffrey's a lucky guy.” Kate said nothing. She didn't even look at him. “Devotion's good,” Booth continued, nodding. “A guy like Caffrey needs all the help he can get.” Kate couldn't help it, her eyes darted towards Booth. A rookie mistake, and he had clearly caught it. He grinned smugly. “He's awfully pretty, your boyfriend. Not much of a fighter either. How does he manage?” Kate stayed silent. “I asked you a question.” His voice took on an edge, and he grabbed her sleeve. Just her sleeve, but Kate could feel the violence lurking in the gesture.

 _No marks_ , Kate thought. _No evidence._ “He gets by,” she said, voice as blank as she could manage.

“Yeah,” Booth sleazed. “He has a lot of friends. It's a world of its own, prison. You've got to know the politics.” He leaned in close. “But politics are always changing. A shift in cell assignments, the wrong word in someone's ear, and we have ourselves a regime change. And those can get ugly. Be dangerous for Caffrey to lose his protection like that.”

“Get to the point,” Kate bit out, even though she could already feel the point like ice curling in her gut.

“It must be lonely, boyfriend locked up and all. I could show you a good time.” Booth lightly brushed her hair. Kate refused to shudder. 

“So I screw you, or you'll have Neal brutalized.” Kate said the words without inflection. She wouldn't tremble. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. 

Booth shrugged. “I never said anything like that. I'm merely offering to comfort you, while mentioning I can make sure things don't get too unpleasant for your boyfriend.” Kate kept silent and still. Booth clapped her shoulder and let his hand linger just a few seconds. It felt like much longer. “Think about it, and give me your answer next week.” Then he was gone and Kate was alone. 

Kate spent the rest of the day on auto-pilot. Booth's threats consumed her thoughts. The thought of him touching her made her want to vomit, but she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Kate had flirted for cons. She had giggled, simpered, and flashed her cleavage. But she'd never had sex with a mark. It had been an unspoken not quite rule; not a line Neal wouldn't cross so much as a line he simply didn't cross. Kate had asked him about it once, and Neal had just said that promising everything and delivering nothing was what a con was all about. Kate hadn't questioned further. It had been an arrangement that had suited her fine. Now she wondered if it wouldn't be better if she had had some experience screwing people she held in contempt. Because she had to say yes. To protect Neal she'd do much worse that submit to scum like Booth. She'd let him grab her, hold her down, and violate her if it meant protecting Neal from the same.

But, oh god, she didn't want to.

She could never tell Neal, of course. The guilt would break him. But every time she saw him, she'd remember. How long could their relationship last if every time she looked at her lover she saw the bastard who raped her?

If Kate had more time, she could get rid of Booth; frame him for theft or some other crime the stuffed shirts would actually care about. But a week wasn't enough

She did have one recourse. It wasn't something she had wanted to resort to, but right now it was the least horrible of a very short list of options. She dug out a burner phone and dialed a familiar number. She just hoped the number was still good... and that the man at the other end was still taking her calls.

The phone rang long enough that worry gnawed at Kate, but finally it was picked up. “Who are you, and how did you get this number? If this is the NSA, remember, I know where the bodies are buried... literally.”

“Mozzie, it's me.”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Kate. It's been a while.” The pleasantry was stilted and false, and Kate didn't have time for games anyway. 

“Mozzie, I need your help.”

“Explain,” Mozzie said. To Kate's surprise, he didn't sound irritated or disbelieving. Instead he was serious, almost somber. As if he realized Kate wouldn't come to him on a whim.

“There's a guard at the prison.” Kate told the story slowly to keep her voice calm. “He's going to have Neal hurt very badly. I only have a week, and I can't stop him in that short a time.” She didn't tell Mozzie everything else Booth had threatened. That was nobody's business but her own.

“I'm going to need a name.”

“Jed Booth.”

“Consider it done.” Mozzie's voice was calm, but Kate could hear the anger underneath it. “Kate,” he said in a way that got her attention, “I'll take care of it.” He hung up.

Mozzie's voice had been almost gentle at the end. Kate couldn't remember him ever being gentle with her. She wondered if he had guessed at all the other dangers Booth posed. Mozzie had always had an extra air of cynicism, and while he never talked about it, Kate knew he had seen certain kinds of darkness that she and Neal never had. If he did know, she was grateful he hadn't mentioned it.

Not worrying that week was impossible, but Kate did her best. She had plenty else to worry about. Keeping an apartment in Manhattan wasn't cheap, to say the least, but Kate stubbornly held on. She no longer believed in concepts like “home,” not in terms of physical location anyway, but Manhattan was something close. Her current apartment wasn't the one she had first shared with Neal, but the layout was similar. Nobody noticed the similarities, which suited Kate just fine. She didn't want to get a reputation for sentiment. Alex visited rarely, but she had never been around the old place or the new one often enough to see any resemblance. Mozzie would have noticed, but Mozzie never came.

Paying rent on her apartment meant jobs, and the kind that came from the kindness of friends didn't always cover it. So Kate took the type of small jobs she had once moved beyond, working with petty crooks she would have once disdained. It paid the bills, and no one had ever paid the rent in pride. 

The next Saturday, Kate drove to the prison feeling a strange mix of anxiety and detached calm. It was impossible not to worry, and yet Mozzie had said he would take care of it. Mozzie was irascible, paranoid, and he could hold a grudge forever, but it could never be said he wasn't competent. And while he might lie through his teeth to the mundanes, when he made a promise to one of his people, he kept it. Strange, how sure Kate was that she was still one of Mozzie's people.

Sure enough, Booth wasn't there. Kate almost asked where he was, but that would have raised suspicion. That was, if anyone would have bothered to answer her question in the first place.

Kate couldn't not wonder what happened though. There were a hundred ways for a con artist to ruin someone's life, but a much smaller number could be pulled off in a week. And this was someone who had threatened Neal, after all. Mozzie had had no reason to be gentle. 

Had Mozzie killed Booth? Kate couldn't have said exactly where the idea had come from. Mozzie had never killed anyone, as far as she knew. _Which could just mean you don't know about it_ , continued the unpleasant voice in her head.

The next question, then, was did Kate care if Mozzie had murdered a person? Was she horrified? Or was she glad? Booth had been a thoroughly nasty person, after all. Kate poked at the idea in her mind, and found she didn't really feel anything at all. Booth was out of the way and couldn't hurt her or Neal. Good.

Mozzie probably hadn't killed Booth anyway. Kate had never killed a man, but it seemed like a messy, complicated business, and Mozzie wasn't the kind of person to create extra work for himself.

Either way, the problem was solved. Kate didn't say anything to Neal that day. She never would, and she knew Mozzie wouldn't either. They might always be competitors to some degree or another, but some things they would always agree on. Keeping Neal safe was the first of those.

“Are you okay?” Neal asked her halfway through the visit.

Kate looked intently at Neal, while trying to mask that she was doing so. The old bruise was long gone, and no new ones had come to replace it. She and Mozzie had dealt with the recent danger. And yet Kate couldn't feel completely relieved. There was always the next threat. Neal was always in danger, however much they both pretended to ignore that for the other person's peace of mind. 

Kate smiled. “I'm fine.” I'll be fine when I can wrap my arms around you, she didn't say. 

But when had she become so certain she wanted him in her arms again?

Before she left, Kate found Bobby and pulled him aside. At first he looked her with concern, then distress when she slipped two fifties into his hand. “Ms. Moreau, you should know I don't need this,” he told her, disappointment in his voice.

Kate smiled sadly. “I do know, Bobby. That's why I did it.” Kate no longer expected the world to reward goodness. In fact, she expected the opposite. But maybe some of Neal's more romantic urges had rubbed off on her. “Please, keep it.”

Bobby shoved the money in his pocket, but he looked at her seriously. “Not again, all right?”

Kate nodded, “All right.”

Two days later, Mozzie called her. “I need a front man,” he informed her brusquely. “Alex is out of town, and the rest are idiots. Are you in?”

Kate paused for only a second. “I'm in.” It wasn't exactly a truce, and it certainly wasn't an apology, but she would take it.

Kate's relationship with Mozzie wasn't the only thing that altered. Kate found herself thinking about her visits with Neal in a different way. Before, Kate had kept her mind very much in the present. She focused on each visit and avoided thinking about the future. Now Kate found herself truly thinking about what would happen once Neal was released. More and more, Kate saw herself in the picture. Kate didn't know if they could make it work, but for the first time since the warehouse, she was sure she wanted to try.

“I've been thinking,” she said to Neal the next time she saw him, “about what we'll do when you get out.”

Neal's eyes widened with a mix of hope and barely perceptible surprise. “We?”

“We,” Kate affirmed with a soft smile. “Isn't that what people in this situation are supposed to do? Dream about the future?”

“You've never been much of a dreamer,” Neal reminded her.

Kate shrugged. “I can give it a try.”

“Well,” Neal said with a smile, “you love Paris.”

Kate smiled back. “So do you.”

“Paris,” Neal repeated. “Fresh baguettes and chèvre in the Parc André Citroën.”

“Spending our mornings sipping café au lait in little cafes,” Kate continued.

“With croissants,” Neal added.

“I love croissants.”

“I know. Then we'll take in the art. Skip the Louvre. The Louvre's been done. We'll find the tiny galleries no one else has ever heard of.”

They spent the rest of the visit trading ideas, building up the perfect Paris vacation. It was impossible to forget where they were, impossible to forget the thick glass wall that separated them. But for a little while, both of them felt there was a future waiting for them. Kate realized only then that she had forgot what having a future felt like. 

It was harder than usual to leave. Kate pressed her hand to the glass like always, and when Neal did the same, it was as if she could almost feel the warmth of his skin.

It became their game. Each time they imagined a new place to go after Neal was free. 

“Tokyo,” Neal said one visit. “I've never been to Tokyo.”

“What does someone do in Tokyo?” Kate asked.

Neal let out a laugh that was small but real. “I don't know. We'll buy a guidebook and do ridiculous tourist things.”

Kate gave Neal an amused look. “Neal, we're New Yorkers. It's our duty to scorn tourists.”

“We won't tell anyone,” Neal stage whispered. 

Kate laughed. She had almost forgotten the way Neal could make her laugh. No one could ever make her laugh like him. She just wished it wasn't equally true that no one could make her hurt like him either. But she was hurting less these days. The two of them traveled the globe without leaving the prison.

“You know where I really want to go?” Kate asked one Saturday after they had been to Paris, Tokyo, Nice, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Prague, and the Swiss Alps. “After you get out, I want to go straight to my apartment.” She blocked the guards and cameras out her mind. She needed to tell Neal this. “I want to fall into bed with you and make love to you for hours. All day, if we can manage it. Once we get too hungry to go on, we'll order in. It will be just the two of us, in a world of our own.”

Neal looked silently at her for several moments. Then he swallowed. “I'd like that. We'll do that, I promise. We'll make it work, Kate.”

“We'll try,” Kate said softly. “We'll do everything we can.”

It would take work, and Kate couldn't be sure that either of them had changed enough. But they hadn't gone through all this simply to give up. The two of them were both too stubborn for that. When great thieves set their eyes on something beautiful, they didn't let anything stand in their way.

Hope was a dangerous thing, but Kate had realized that neither she nor Neal could get through this with their sanity intact without it. Going through the motions one day at a time had been slowly ruining Kate, and she hadn't even noticed. As for what Neal had been feeling, Kate couldn't be sure. She knew he always tried to appear upbeat whenever he saw her. Kate never called him on it, because she could tell it was for his sake as much as hers. No matter what happened to him outside the visiting room, he wanted his time with Kate to be untouched by ugliness. Even if he never said as much, Kate knew him well enough.

Kate also understood because she did much the same thing. Whatever was going on in her life, whatever pain or stress she was feeling, Kate couldn't burden Neal with it. He had to much to handle to worry about her. It could be a lonely way of living, but Kate had always been self-reliant. 

Still, an inability to be honest had split them up in the first place. Now they were lying to each other out of necessity. It gave Kate no clues as to whether or not they'd be able to make their relationship work beyond the dreary prison walls. But after all this time, even with her reservations, Kate believed it was worth a shot.

It didn't make Kate's visits easier on her, exactly, but she hadn't realized until after the fact how much energy she had been expending preventing herself from getting too attached to Neal and worrying about what she would do once he was out. Now, even if their current lives weren't any better, at least they could imagine different ones.

And that, of course, was when it all went to hell.

At first, Kate wasn't surprised to find herself followed by the FBI. She was the known associate of a convicted forger, and she was easy to find. She didn't like it. It was like ice down her neck to know they were watching, but there was nothing she could do about it. Neal only had a little over five months left, and Kate wasn't running out on him now. She was as worried as any criminal being tailed by the FBI should be, but no more than that. She wasn't like Neal, who always needed to be noticed. Kate kept her crimes under the radar. She knew the FBI kept track of her while she and Neal were separated, and if they couldn't pin anything on her back then, then they couldn't now.

Except then she found an FBI agent at her latest apartment. In her apartment, waiting for her when she came home from shopping. “You don't have a warrant,” Kate said flatly, because if he did, there would be a proper team here, collecting evidence, not one man waiting for her in the dark like a creep. She had assumed it was Burke following her, but this man was nothing like Burke. Kate had met enough sharks to know when she was facing one.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked with an easy shrug. “Report me? Trust the government to protect you from the rogue FBI agent?” Kate didn't have anything to say to that. “We don't need to be enemies, Kate,” the man continued. “Think of this as a business opportunity.” Kate folded her arms and stayed silent. She wasn't going to do any of his work for him. Undaunted, he went on. “Neal Caffrey stole a particular item. I want it. If you help me get it, I'd be willing to cut you in. Easy work for you, with plenty of profit.”

“You're right and you're wrong,” Kate said, her voice, very, very calm.

The man looked at her with mild interest. “Yes?”

“You're right. I'm not going to report you, because, as we're both aware, the FBI protects their own and doesn't give a crap about people like me. And you're wrong.” Kate's eyes narrowed and the temperature of her voice plummeted. “If you're going after Neal, then we absolutely need to be enemies.”

The man started to move. Kate's eye's darted frantically. If he reached for a gun, could she get to the door before he shot her? But all he did was stand and walk toward the door. Once he reached the door, he stopped. “I want you to remember that I tried to do this nicely.”

“I know what nice means to men like you,” Kate hissed.

The man chuckled darkly and reached into his coat pocket. Kate tensed, but he just pulled out a business card. He held it out. “If you change your mind, you can always reach me at work.” Kate refused to take the card. The man gave her a smile even darker than his earlier laugh and let it flutter it to the floor. “I'll see you soon, Kate.” Then he left, shutting the door softly behind him.

Crap. Kate picked up the card. “Special Agent Garrett Fowler” it read. The card, more than anything, scared Kate. Garrett Fowler was a man who wasn't afraid to be found. He had the resources of the FBI, but, if today's demonstration had been any indication, not the red tape. And he wanted something from Neal. Something he wasn't willing to wait five months to get.

Kate's first instinct was to call Mozzie, but she stopped herself. This was far beyond what Mozzie could deal with. Asking for his help would only bring the FBI down on him, and Kate refused to do that. She was going to have to do this on her own. She'd have to go to ground. Five months left on Neal's sentence, and she was going to leave him after all. 

What was she going to do about Neal? The safest thing would be to leave right now and not look back, but that would mean leaving Neal without a word of warning. Saturday would come, Neal would be expecting her, and she would simply never show up. It was too cruel. There would have to be one last visit, and everything would depend on that. She'd have to work out a plan that could unfold under the eyes of prison guards and cameras that Fowler would undoubtedly watch. It would have to be subtle. 

Kate pulled out the old Bordeaux bottle, the one she'd never have admitted to keeping. She mixed a batch of invisible ink, and carefully, so carefully, she wrote out a message on the bottle. Next she crafted the letter that would set up their meeting. She smiled a little as she used their old folding code. By the time time Neal was free, Kate would have to have found some way back to New York and to be at Grand Central Station every Friday. But she'd work out the logistics later. Neal had always been brilliant at making up plans on the fly, while Kate preferred a more deliberate approach. Hopefully, she had picked up enough tricks to do it Neal's way.

Saturday, the last Saturday, came. Kate couldn't bring herself to engage in conversation with others who waited with her. They seemed to notice her mood and kept their distance. Even Loretta stopped at a few concerned looks. 

Neal smiled when she stepped into the visiting room, but his smile stalled when he saw Kate's face. “Kate? Are you okay?”

The two of them had always loved codes. But they had nothing that would fit a situation like this. Neither of them had imagined a situation like this. “I can't do this, Neal.” She tried to will him to see through her words.

“Kate what do you mean?” Neal looked at her searchingly, a hint of desperation entering his expression.

“I'm leaving.” _I'm leaving New York, because I have to. I'm not leaving you._ “I can't do this any longer." _I can't, not that I don't want to._ Kate fiercely hoped that Neal's look of confusion and devastation was an act, that he had caught on to the trick. She had a horrible, sinking suspicion, however, that everything he was doing was completely real. He raised his hand to the glass as he had done so many times before, but this time Kate didn't reciprocate. His attention was completely on her. She wouldn't get a better chance. She tapped out her Morse code message. Immediately she felt a rush of aggravation and despair, because Neal's eyes had never left her face. He hadn't seen her message. She didn't get a second take, and she didn't dare give him anything more obvious. He thought she was leaving him.

There wasn't a way to salvage the situation. She was going to have to run and figure this out later. If there was a later. “Adios, Neal. It's been real.” It wasn't the way she normally spoke, and she hoped against all odds that Neal would realize everything she had just said was a lie. But that was a stupid, desperate half-plan, and Kate knew better than to count on it.

Kate had never felt guilty for leaving Neal, after he lied to her about Copenhagen. She couldn't have been with Neal if she had always been waiting for him to con her. But it meant that every day of his sentence, Neal had been half expecting her to leave. Stupid, yes, but Neal always took everything to the extreme. And now she had fulfilled his worst fears, and he wasn't thinking about anything but that. How were they always ruining things for themselves? Was that just what happened to people like them? Was this just the lies catching up? It wasn't the way Kate usually thought, but nothing about her life right now was usual.

Kate was numb the whole drive back. Standing in her apartment, she knew she had to pack up and run. That had been the whole point of this. But Neal didn't know how to take no for an answer. He'd try to see her again. If he was thinking, he'd wait to get out legally, but Kate knew him better than that. He'd break out. He'd come looking for her. If they could catch each other, maybe they could do this together. And, added a small, sentimental voice that Kate usually denied having, she could explain that she loved him.

Kate spent nearly a month and half in New York when she should have been halfway across the country, if not the world. She changed apartments and slept in dingy safe houses, but it was always denying the inevitable. Her safe houses, no matter supposedly secret, always got bugged. The last straw was when she narrowly avoided Agent Fowler himself coming into one of her boltholes to claim her. She slipped out a boarded up window, but she knew she was finished in New York. She had waited for Neal as long as she could.

She briefly went back to the apartment in her name to drop off the Bordeaux bottle. No matter how long it took him, Neal would come, and it was the only clue she could leave him. Hopefully, he could figure it out even without her message.

Kate grabbed her essentials, made her way to the bus station, and bought a ticket for Seattle. Getting to the other coast sounded like a good idea at the moment. And Canada was only two hours away, should she need to hop a border. But most of all, Kate chose Seattle because she didn't have anything in Seattle. It wasn't anywhere anyone would expect her to be.

Running was familiar, as was running alone. Kate had always been good at being alone, and she had learned to be even better. But it hurt now, in ways it hadn't before. She thought back to all her visits with Neal. She never thought that she'd be the one who would need to take comfort from them. She wished their last meeting hadn't been so bitter. She wished Neal's pain hadn't been the last thing she had seen of him. 

She and Neal had gotten through nearly four years on nothing but determination, hope, and, yes, love. It would have to be enough to get them through what was coming next. Hope didn't come naturally to Kate, but determination did. 

She stepped onto the bus, and disappeared into the night. She was running again, as she had so many times before, but this time, with any luck, she'd have someone waiting for her when she returned.


End file.
